No end to poverty if planet’s resources are drained

Posted on 25 September 2013
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A significant proportion of the Indrawati River Basin population live well below the poverty line. Approximately 60% subsist on crop agriculture, relying on cash crops such as rice and vegetables to make a living. Water scarcity is threatening the livelihoods of these people.

Brussels, Belgium: Today the President of the EU Commission Barroso and the Commissioners for Environment and Development Potočnik and Piebalgs will attend the UN General Assembly in New York where 193 UN Member States will debate the shape of a future global post-2015 development agenda.

Despite its initial call in February and the EU Council Conclusions in June to merge development and environmental sustainability into a single agenda, the latest statement released by the EU last Monday leaves environment out of the discussions again and seems to revert to a business-as usual approach, something which WWF finds worrying.

WWF believes in an integrated approach, and asks the EU to stick strongly to its position and urges the UN to move to a new single overarching post-2015 framework, addressing the drivers of poverty and environmental degradation, as well as the accelerating threats caused by climate change and unsustainable production and consumption.

“If we continue to deplete our natural resources at this rate, there will be no way to tackle poverty and hunger in the future. The EU has repeated many times that a more sustainable management of natural resources is vital if we are to ensure a decent life for all in the future. Now they need to bring this message to New York and make sure that people and planet are centre stage of the debate. Hunger and natural resource scarcity are two sides of the same coin and they need to be addressed together.

The approach where environment, economy, social and health issues are treated separately has already showed its limits; we need to link these issues together into one sustainable development agenda that takes into account equity, human rights, natural resource constraints and planetary boundaries. This is the only way we can guarantee a future where poverty is only a bad memory. “

A significant proportion of the Indrawati River Basin population live well below the poverty line. Approximately 60% subsist on crop agriculture, relying on cash crops such as rice and vegetables to make a living. Water scarcity is threatening the livelihoods of these people.